Fuchsia

Today the folks at AOSP (Android Open Source Project) at Google revealed their newest move to make the "OSP" part of AOSP far more real. Google owns Android, yes, but they've also kept the Open Source Project bit a reality since the very beginning. This week the developers at Google released a tool that'll make it far easier for 3rd-party (read: non-Google) developers to lend their skills to the development of AOSP, and potentially play a part in guiding what takes priority in Android development, and when.

There’s no denying that Google is everywhere. And not just on the Web or on Android. It has its apps and services even on rival platforms like Windows, macOS, and iOS. Writing and maintaining apps for all those is no walk in the park and time wasted on pushing pixels could be spent on actually implementing important features. To help itself as well as other developers on that same path, Google has developed the Flutter, now in its first stable 1.0 release, to help build “beautiful native” Android and iOS interfaces from a single codebase.

A report released today revealed new inner workings of one of Google's not-so-public projects: Fuchsia. This software development project is available for public viewing in SOME sense, and has been for some time, but the way Google's using it remains largely a mystery. Today we're to understand that Fuchsia's reaching a crossroads, and that Google will soon need to decide whether to hang on and bust through, or drop the project altogether.

Back a few years ago, before the most major pouring out of popularity for smartphones, there was AOSP. That's the Android Open Source Project - and it still exists today. With the latest developments in AOSP with regard to Google's next operating system development, Fuchsia, I wondered today: Will Google maintain Android?

Google is not one to shy away from throwing anything and everything at a wall to see which ones stick. It has admittedly given birth to some highly successful products but has also resulted in a few false positives. But as big as Google may be, it doesn't have an infinite amount of resources, especially human ones. And as a skunkworks project becomes more and more official, more and more resources might be diverted away from those that need them even more. That might soon be the case with Fuchsia OS, the third Google operating system it doesn't really need.

Google is known, even notorious, for having so many overlapping projects and moonshots on its plate. Even while both Android and Chrome OS fight for consumers’ affection (and wallets), it is believed to be working on a third wheel. At one point it was nicknamed “Andromeda”, a fusion of the two. Now that third OS is believed to be Fuchsia, which already has a number of code and assets available for developers to pick apart. But if you’re a simple end user, you can use this web-based third-party demo to see what all the fuss is about.

It's time to talk about Google's software called Fuchsia again. Today it's become apparent that Fuchsia is running on the Google Pixelbook. Fuchsia is a new(ish) operating system Google's been working on for many months. The Google Pixelbook is the notebook equivalent of a Google Pixel smartphone, instead running Chrome OS right out the box.

This week an intrepid collection of developers have spotted the beginning of user interface themes in Android O for the Google Pixel. This could mean that Google will eventually allow users to theme their software with a set of colors, icons, and wallpapers that are made to make Android more personal. The first "theme" that's appeared is the "Pixel Theme" which includes User Icons 1-8, System Error, Primary, Secondary, tertiary, Quaternary, and Accent colors.

Google's next operating system goes by the name (or codename) Fuchsia, and this morning I loaded it on my Pixel XL. Just yesterday we were rummaging through the files provided by Google developers on Github - and inside we found a bunch of bits and pieces that make for a rather awesome look at the future. Today with the help of HotFix Computer Repair maestro Kyle Bradshaw, we've got a path to the APK to get a feel for Armadillo on a smartphone.